Winter Jacket (32 page)

She gracefully bent over and ran her hands along the insides of her nylon-encased thighs.  She looked back at me with a smirk on her lips.  She stood straight again and returned to her position on my lap, this time facing away.  She arched her back, her barely-covered chest thrusting out, and she rested her head back against my shoulder.  I was rewarded with an unobstructed view of flesh
y breasts and a tight abdomen. She ran her fingertips down the exposed flesh spilling over the top of her bra, down her flat stomach, and between her finely muscled thighs.

When she began moving her backside
in erotic figure eights on top of my thighs, I couldn’t take anymore.

"I'm sorry.
I can't do this."

Before she could react to my dismissal,
I was out of my chair and out of the private room.  The music in the club felt too loud. The bass throbbing from the main stage echoed so much it was making it hard to breathe.  I found my friends in the same place where I'd left them.  In my absence, they’d ordered sushi.

"Hey, jackweed," Troian called out when she spotted me coming closer.
  "What are you doing back so soon?  I paid for two full songs."

"I know," I sighed. "But it just felt wrong."

Troian sat up straighter, looking alert and ready for action. "Did Blondie suck? I'll go talk to management and we'll get you a different dancer."

"No, no.
She was fine," I placated.

Nikole placed her hand over Troian's. "Hun, I think she means it didn't feel right because it wasn't
Hunter
grinding on her lap."  She gave me a sympathetic smile.

Troian glared at her girlfriend. “You’re lucky there’s no alcohol here.  You’re not supposed to say her name.”

A sudden wave of emotion hit me. I felt like I was drowning in guilt and regret.  I grabbed my jacket. "I'm gonna grab a cab back to the hotel.  You guys should stay though,” I insisted.  “We're supposed to be celebrating Troi's success, and I'm just being a downer."

"Are you sure?" Nikole asked. "We could come back with you."

"I'm fine, really." I waved her off, urging them to stay.  "I just need some fresh air and a soft mattress. You guys have fun."

             
                                                                                    +++++
The taxi ride back to the hotel was short, but quiet. I was thankful that the driver didn’t try to start a conversation with me.  I’d had too much small talk with strangers for one day.  I got back to my room some time after 2 am.  I took a quick shower to rinse the sweat and stripper off before crawling into bed.  I was thankful Troian had insisted we stay at a nice hotel so I didn't have to try to sleep while hearing the people in the next room having sex or the sounds of the city still screaming outside.

When I crawled into bed,
I lay on my back for a while, still wired from my night out.  Normally after a few beers I would have had no problem falling asleep, but juice and Red Bull and naked women were not a cocktail for rest.  I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and looked at the time. I was tempted to call Hunter, just to hear her voice before I fell asleep, but I was mindful of the two-hour difference.  It would be after 4am back home, and she'd be getting up in a few hours for her internship at the hospital.

I flipped through my contacts until I got to her number.
I stared at the picture I'd assigned to her name. It was a black and white close-up of her smiling face.  She was holding onto Sylvia, and they were both looking straight into the camera. My thumb hovered over the call button, but I locked my phone instead and returned it to the end table.

                                                                                                  +++++
The next morning, after working out for an hour at the hotel's fitness center, I had breakfast poolside. I wasn't alone for long, however, before Troian unceremoniously plopped down in a chair at my table.

"Morning, sunshine," I greeted.

Troian squinted back at me from behind oversized sunglasses and grunted something unintelligible.

"What's wrong?" I laughed. "You look like you're hung
-over, but I know you didn't have anything to drink last night."

"Long night," she grumbled. "Didn't sleep." She grabbed my orange juice and smelled it, ascertaining if there was alcohol in it, no doubt.
  She took an experimental sip.

"Gross
,” I gagged. “You know I don't need to know about what you and Nik do in your spare time."

"Asshole," she cursed at me while continuing to drink my orange juice. "I was too nervous and excited to sleep so I stayed
up working on the pilot."

"Oh.
Not as fun." I chuckled at the sour look on her face. I loved how expressive Troian was about everything. She wasn't overly dramatic; she just wore her emotions out loud.  "Speaking of Nik," I noted, noticing her absence, "where's your better half this morning?"

Troian pulled her sunglasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "She's still getting ready in the room," she said through a yawn. "You know how she is.
She'll be down when she finishes primping."

"What's the plan for the day?" I asked. Troian only had one scheduled meeting this trip, which she'd done yesterday.
We had one more full day in California before our flight the next morning. I deferred to Troian's judgment since she was far more familiar with the Los Angeles area than me.

"As soon as Nik gets down here I thought we could go to the beach. I want to get a little color before we ret
urn to The Great White North."

I pushed my chair back just enough so I was no longer b
eneath the protective umbrella.  The morning sun was warm on my skin. "You know," I said as I sipped my coffee, "I could get used to life out here.  This weather is amazing," I approved. I slid my sunglasses back over my face. "And the scenery's not too bad either," I murmured as a curvy woman in a bikini walked by.

"You're such a hornball." Troian commandeered the rest of my bre
akfast and moved on to my bagel.  She must really have been stressed out; she was eating carbs.

"I have a healthy sexual appetite," I defended myself. "There's nothi
ng wrong with that."

"Uh huh." Troian finished the last of my Everything bagel. "All I know is that when we get back home you'd better not start crying about how you
messed things up with Hunter."

I glanced at my phone, which sat useless on the table.
 I hadn't received a single call or text from Hunter since we landed. I'd texted to let her know we'd made it to California.  She'd responded with a single letter: K.

"I thought
about calling her last night."

"Before or after the lap dance?" Troian pointedly
asked.

I fro
wned, feeling instantly guilty.  She wasn't really accusing me of anything, but in a way she was.  I never should have let Troian buy me a dance if I was still clinging to hope that Hunter and I would reconcile. If I was serious about making it work I shouldn't be ogling girls in bikinis every chance I got. I shouldn't have taken this trip at all. I should have stayed behind and talked, not run away.

"Uh oh," Troian worried out
loud. "I broke you, didn't I?"

I looked at my friend through the tears
that blurred my vision. "It's really over, isn't it?"

+++++

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

After
the long weekend in California, I threw myself into my work so I didn't have time to think about Hunter. My tenure review was coming up shortly before the end of the semester, so maybe it was fortuitous that I could refocus on my career without the distraction of a significant other. I didn't think we'd broken up, but I knew the longer I waited to talk to her again, the more broken we became. I had expected at least a text message from her, but my phone remained silent beyond the few messages I received from Troian, reminding me of what an asshole I was.

I felt paranoid on campus, sure we'd run into each other walking to and from classes. But since it was her
senior year, she had few actual classes and spent the majority of her day at her internship with the local hospital. I thought I saw her everywhere though, but it just turned out my campus was populated with a lot of blonde co-eds.

While I was able to work with relative focus when I was in my faculty office, that all changed when I returned home at the end of the workday.
Even though we had been far from living together, my house felt more empty than usual, and I seemed to be surrounded by things that made me think of her.  It was especially problematic in my home office, where her light perfume still seemed to cling in the air. And like a masochist, I found myself spending more time in that room than usual. The little red couch where Hunter often did her homework had become my default location in the house.

The significance of the
current day wasn't lost on me.  It was Hunter's birthday. Her 21st birthday. I wanted to call and wish her a happy birthday, but I didn't want her to think I was checking up on her, keeping tabs, making sure she didn't go overboard. And I worried that talking to me might upset her and lead her to drink even more tonight.  And I couldn't just text her. It would have been too flippant and distant.  So instead I maintained my radio silence.  I had wanted to do something special for her on this day.  But instead, I was ignoring her. 

Sylvia hopped up on my lap.
She was a finicky animal who you could only pet when she wanted it to happen. The rest of the time she'd take a swipe at you if you tried to give her any attention. It made me wonder what her life had been like before I'd adopted her. She was in a rare, affectionate mood this evening, so I put down my book to pay attention to her instead. 

Our uncustomary cuddle time was interrupted by my cell phone ringing.  I recognized the ringtone and answered the call on the second ring, my chest feeling tight with anticipation.

"Elle?" Even without looking at the phone number, I'd know her voice.  

"
Hunter." Saying her name was like a prayer.  I hadn't allowed myself the indulgence since my California trip and whenever I’d said her name in front of Troian and Nikole, I’d had to drink hard alcohol.

"I was just in a car accident."

"Oh my God. Are you alright, sweetie?" I mentally winced. The endearment felt so natural falling off my tongue.

"I'm okay," she said. 
She sounded so small on the phone. "Just a little bit shaken up." Her voice wavered with emotion. "I've never been in an accident before. I didn't know who else to call."

"Where are you?" I asked, immediate
ly shooing Sylvia from my lap and grabbing my keys and jacket.

"59th and State."

I mentally pictured the area. It was practically in the heart of campus. "I'll be right there."

"No, Elle, you don't –"

"I'll be right there," I repeated with more force.

Her words were quiet. "Thank you."

+++++
 

As I jogged the short distance to campus, my mind went back to
Hunter's words:
"I didn't know who else to call."
The first time I'd ever gotten into a car accident – an asshole had T-boned me going through a red light – I'd immediately called my dad even though we no longer lived in the same state. It was just my instinctive move. Something goes wrong with the car, call Dad. The fact that Hunter hadn't called her own parents, who only lived a few minutes away, troubled me. Were they punishing her for our relationship or was it the other way around?

In just a few minutes, I was close to
the intersection where Hunter had said she was.  As I jogged closer, I could see the fire truck and ambulance at the scene.  My heart seized in my chest.
You were just on the phone with her,
I reminded myself while my chest felt like it was exploding.
She's fine. She's
got
to be fine.

A small crowd had gathered at the scene. It was between afternoon classes and a number of gawkers huddled around the wreck.  The two cars
had been maneuvered off of the main street and rolled into a student parking lot so traffic could continue. The other car, a charcoal  luxury vehicle, had its front end destroyed.
I saw Hunter's car, a silver nondescript four-door compact car. The passenger side was smashed in, both doors crumpled up, and the front wheel well was severely bent. My panic deepened.

I scanned the scene frantically u
ntil a glimpse of familiar corn-silk blonde caught my eye. I saw Hunter sitting on the back edge of an opened-door ambulance. A paramedic was standing in the way, and from where I was standing, I couldn't see if she'd been injured.

Her name was out of my mouth before I could restrain myself. "
Hunter!"

Her grey-blue eyes jerk
ed in the direction of my call.  When she looked my way, our eyes met; hers, wide and startled, filled with tears. I wove my way through the ever-growing crowd of onlookers until I erased the distance between us. She threw herself into my arms and buried her face into my shoulder. My arms were only too happy to wrap around her shaking form.  We stood there, not speaking. Finally, reluctantly, I pulled back. Her face turned towards mine. On her temple was a butterfly Band-Aid. My fingertips brushed over the small bandage. “You’re hurt.”

Her hand went to the wound. “It’s just a bump.”

I searched her face, looking for other signs of injury, but found none – just those wet, grey eyes staring back at me.

“What happened?”

She sucked in a deep breath. “I was leaving campus to go to my internship at the hospital. I guess there was some black ice or something because Professor Drake went through his stop sign and smashed into my passenger side.”

I knew Martin
Drake.  He was an arrogant tenured professor in the Poli-Sci department. Even though he wasn’t in my department, it was a small campus and his reputation preceded him.  He was one of those Good ‘Ol Boys who students often complained to me about, especially the female students who felt overlooked for their male classmates. If it had been another staff member, someone less obnoxious and misogynistic, I might not have snapped.

The man in question was on his cell phone a few yards away.  “Hey,
Drake!” I hollered.  “What the hell were you thinking?”  The man in his ugly pleated slacks didn’t hear me or was ignoring me.

“Elle,”
Hunter hushed.  “People are looking.”

“Let them
,” I snapped. “Did he even apologize to you?” I asked her.

Her eyes cast down.  “He’s been on his phone the whole time.”

“That son of a bitch,” I growled.  He probably hadn’t even checked in with Hunter to make sure she was okay – just hopped on his phone to call his insurance company.

Hunter
’s hand at my wrist was the only thing keeping me from going face-to-face with that asshole.  It wasn’t a particularly tight grasp, and I could have pulled away with little effort, but just her light touch was keeping me from flying off the handle.             

“Did you talk to the police already?”

She nodded.  “They’ve come and gone.  I’m just waiting for the tow-truck.”

A particularly vicious wind chose that moment to whip at my face. “It’s freezing out here,” I chattered, jerking at the collar of my wool coat.
Winter was coming soon.  “Why don’t you wait at my house?  They have your number; they’ll call when they get here.”

She crossed her arms
and her face now looked grave. “That’s nice of you to offer, but you don’t have to be nice to me anymore.”

I opened and shut my mouth a few times, feeling blindsided by her abrupt change in attitude.
“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.
You freaking out at Professor Drake actually helped calm me down,” she said carefully. “But I’m just remembering I’m still supposed to be mad at you.”

“If you’re still mad, w
hy did you call me?”

“I told you – I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Not your parents? Or your roommate?”

“I’m not talking to
my parents right now.  And Sara’s in class.”

I didn’t know what to say.  My lips pursed and I nodded. “Okay.  Well, if you change your mind, Sylvia and
I are just a few minutes away.” I couldn’t tell if it was the cold chill of the day that was causing tears to prick at the corners of my eyes or the emotion of the moment.  Lies.  I knew why I felt like crying.  She was standing in front of me.

Hunter must have seen the emotion on my face.  Her own features softened, and she placed a hand at my wrist.  The familiar touch did nothing to help keep my tears under control.
“Elle.  Thank you for coming.  I—.”

“Don’t worry about it.”  I tugged again at my jacket collar, pulling it up higher around my face like a shield.  It wasn’t really that cold; I was used to the weather.
But I didn’t want her to see my face and know how much I was hurting.

+++++

Early the next morning I found myself standing on the front stoop of her apartment building, flowers in hand.  I pressed the button to call up to her apartment and waited.  Her voice cut through the eerie silence of that Saturday morning.  There seemed to be nobody awake yet, not even the birds. “Hello?”

“Hi,” I said, scratching at the back of my neck.  I felt vulnerable standing out front even though I knew she couldn’t see me. “Can I come in?”

I waited a painful, awkward moment before the front door buzzed and I heard the telltale clicking of the entrance unlocking.  I quickly grabbed onto the handle and yanked, gaining entrance and hopefully forgiveness.

I bounded up the quick flight of stairs to her second-floor apartment.  I wondered if her roommate was at home.  One of these days I’d have to make an effort to get to know her.  When I reached
Hunter’s apartment, the door was open and she was standing in the threshold, looking unhappy.

I thrust the bouquet of flowers out in front of me.
I was actually proud of my selection – they weren’t the impersonal gas station variety.  I’d gone to the flower shop near my house that morning and had handpicked a few wildflowers and some more traditional, recognizable flowers.  “Happy belated birthday.”

She seemed unimpressed by my efforts, however. “I thought you didn’t like
cut flowers.” She had an uncanny knack for remembering what I considered trivial details.  I suppose Nikole might have mentioned something to her about it though.  She was always horrified by my dispassionate relationship with cut flowers.

“They aren’t for me though,” I pointed out.  I gave them a little shake, drawing her attention to the bouquet about which I’d been so proud.

She finally took them, her face still unreadable. She took a few steps backwards, back in to her apartment. “Do you want to come in?  Sara’s at church.” My stomach dropped.  My Hunter used to go to church with her roommate.

I stepped past the threshold, into her two-bedro
om apartment. She wandered away toward the back of the apartment, and rather than hanging out unsure in the front foyer, I followed.  The apartment was small and it didn’t take long for me to find her.  She was in the kitchen, looking through the cabinets until she found a glass vase.  Scissors were produced and she began snipping off the ends of the flowers and arranging them in the tall, blue vessel.  The bright oranges, reds, and yellows of the wildflowers contrasted nicely with the deep blue hue.

I cleared my throat. “
I came to apologize.”

“About?”

“Meeting your parents stressed me out a lot more than I thought it was going to.”

She nodded serenely, but didn’t look up from her task. “I know.  And I shouldn’t have been so flippant about how badly it went.”

“I’m sorry about that, too.  I’m just more stressed than usual, I guess.” I frowned and looked down at the light-colored linoleum flooring.  “I know it’s no excuse, but my Tenure Review is coming up, and even though I’ve been jumping through all the hoops they’ve asked me to, I’m still nervous about it.” I looked up and found her staring intensely at me. “This is the thing I’ve been working towards all my life, you know?”